


Collateral

by Aragarna



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5705569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aragarna/pseuds/Aragarna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag to episode 5x03. When Agent Siegel is found dead, Neal knows it's his fault. How could it not be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collateral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheenianni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheenianni/gifts).



Neal stumbles back. He can’t look at him. He can’t look at David Siegel’s body, lying there, on a dirty sidewalk, a hole in the heart, as rain is washing away the blood.

He closes his eyes tight shut. A shiver runs down his spine. His entire body is shaking. He’s going to be sick. He suppresses a retching and crouches down.

He startles when Peter puts a hand on his shoulder. Neal keeps his eyes down. He doesn’t dare looking at Peter.

“Go home, Neal,” the agent says sympathetically. Neal doesn’t protest.

A probie drives him home. Neal can’t get out of the car soon enough. He runs upstairs, closes the door and finally crashes on a nearby chair.

It’s his fault. It has to be his fault. It cannot be a coincidence that Siegel was found two blocks from where he met Hagen the day before. His new handler must have been following him, as he had been following him every day. He must have seen him meeting Hagen. Or Hagen caught sight of him – Hagen, the cold blooded killer that Neal himself had set loose. And now he has killed Agent Siegel.

Neal puts his head in his hands. He wants to cry. He wants to scream.

He wants to wake up from this terrible nightmare.

Agent Siegel is dead. And it’s his fault.

He’s disgusted with himself. He feels dirty to the bones. Guilt is eating him alive.

It’s too much. He can’t stand it. He can’t breathe. He can’t move. It’s like his heart is going to explode. He’s suffocating. His vision blurs…

 

\--------------------------------

  
“Neal?”

Neal opens his eyes. He’s lying on the floor of his apartment. Mozzie is hovering over him, visibly worried.

“What happened?”

“You tell me,” Mozzie retorts. “I just got in to find you lying on the floor.”

Neal slowly sits up. Mozzie brings him a glass of water and Neal takes it with a shaky hand. He forces himself to drink it all. Feeling a little better, he carefully raises and sits back on the chair.

“What are you doing here?” He asks Mozzie.

“The Suit called me. He said you’d be here and that I should probably keep an eye on you.”

It felt as if Neal had been stabbed in the heart. Peter is concerned about him. The one time Peter truly has a reason to arrest him on the spot, Peter is simply worried about him. Peter doesn't know what the terrible, horrible things Neal has done. Peter doesn't know what a terrible, horrible person Neal is. Neal doesn't deserve his concern.

“It’s my fault Mozzie! I set Hagen free and he killed David Siegel!”

“You don’t know that,” Mozzie counters.

“He was following me. Why else would he have been in such a remote area? I saw the…” Neal swallows the lump in his throat. “The body. It was an execution. Short range, right in the heart. And he was left there, to bleed out on the sidewalk. Because of _me_.”

“You didn’t pull the trigger. You’re not responsible for…”

“Stop rationalizing Moz! Of course I’m responsible!” Neal gets up. “I have to tell Peter.”

Mozzie gets up too. “You can’t do that. You’d go back to jail.”

“Which is exactly where I deserve to be.”

“Neal…”

But Neal doesn’t walk to the door. Slowly, he sits back down. He can’t tell Peter. Not because he doesn’t want to go to jail, but because he can’t do that to Peter. How could he explain to his friend that the price of his freedom was the life of his young agent? Peter couldn’t live with this. It would destroy him. Neal can’t do that to him.

He looks up at Mozzie, resolute. “Peter can _never_ find out about Hagen. No one. Ever.”

Neal will have to live with it, somehow.

 

 

 

 


End file.
